


i'll love you at five in the morning

by moonmemory



Category: Canada's Drag Race RPF, RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, jackie scarlett juice and kiara are there as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmemory/pseuds/moonmemory
Summary: The first few hours passed in a blur of colorful drinks and dancing and relief. Nothing felt off between her and Priyanka. They would still smile brightly at each other, and Priyanka would still drag Lemon up to the bar to do shots with her even though Lemon probably should have stopped drinking three shots ago. None of that mattered though, because they were alright.Or Lemon kissed Priyanka when she was drunk and jealous and now has to deal with the consequences of it.
Relationships: Lemon/Priyanka (Drag Race)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	i'll love you at five in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> I've been quite in love with both of these gals for a while now, and as there's not nearly enough stories with them, so I decided to make a small contribution. This was only supposed to be around 2k words, but it got a life of its own haha. Enjoy!

Lemon had been in bed most of the day feeling sorry for herself. Her spending the first half of a Saturday in bed wasn’t in itself noteworthy, but usually she’d be blasting one of her Spotify playlists from her computer, scroll through her social media and send funny memes to Priyanka whenever she stumbled upon one that made her snort a laugh. Today though she had been hiding under her covers, decisively not participating in whatever was going on in the groupchat, with her blinds still blocking out the sun and hoping to sleep the day away even though she had been awake for hours.

It wasn’t like her, to feel this way. She was usually able to shrug whatever off, to go on with her day as her usual confident self, but this was about Priyanka so of course it had to be different. Of course it had to feel like getting hit by a truck and then having to hike five miles in the desert without any water or sense of direction. 

She had been going over the previous evening’s events in her head so much it felt like it had been etched into her retina, and she saw flashes of her and Priyanka even when her eyes were open. 

Clear images of her and Priyanka dancing, and her and Priyanka laughing outside with their bare arms and legs covered in goosebumps, the latter of the two with a cigeratte between her lips, and Priyanka and that one fucking girl throwing her head back in laughter with her hand resting on Priyanka’s bicep in a way that made Lemon’s skin crawl with jealousy played on a loop in her mind. They were accompanied by embarrassing blurs of Priyanka’s parted lips, and her wide and unblinking eyes as Lemon tried to form a drunken apology, and Priyanka’s hands on Lemon’s back as she threw up into a trash can outside of the club, and she didn’t know how to make any of it stop.

She wanted very much to delete last night from everyone’s collective memory, every part of it, but she couldn’t, so she groaned into her pillow instead.

At around two Jan made the decision that Lemon had wallowed enough in selfpity when she burst into her room to draw back the blinds and forcefully pulled away the covers she had buried herself in.

“Okay doll, that’s enough. Whatever happened last night can’t be this bad.” 

Lemon shot her a pitiful look, and felt a pout form on her lips on its own accord. Jan crossed her arms, staring unblinkingly back, clearly not impressed with Lemon’s dramatics.

She was used to Lemon _maybe_ being slightly over dramatic about situations she didn’t need to blow out of proportions the way she had a tendency to do, so it was fair enough Lemon reckoned. Not that Jan was any better herself. She had once had a full two hour breakdown of ugly sobbing into a pint of Ben&Jerry’s because she only got a B+ on her reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

The problem was that, for once, Lemon wasn’t being over dramatic. She muttered something indistinct and covered her face with her hands, hoping it would make the memories of last night disappear. Or make Jan go away. Either would do at this point.

“No, nope, we’re not doing this today gorg,” Jan stated and grabbed Lemon’s legs to drag her across the mattress and onto the floor. She could easily have resisted, she usually did, but she didn’t have the fight in her today, so she just fell limply onto her cold bedroom floor.

“Oh. It really is serious.”

Lemon peeked through her fingers at Jan, who had now uncrossed her arms and looked down at her with a worried crease between her brows.

“Yeah.”

Jan sat down next to Lemon, who instinctively rested her head against her shoulder and felt slightly better about life, even if she had wished for her to get the fuck out of her room not even two minutes ago.

“Spill,” Jan encouraged, and that was all it took for Lemon to relive the horrors of yesterday. It was partly because Jan was persuasive and supportive and Lemon needed someone to talk to about everything anyway, but mostly it was because Jan was the safest person she knew apart from Priyanka, and she couldn’t very well talk to her about this.

“So. Uh, you know how you and Jacks went home and Kiki went off to make some unfortunate soul fall in love with her, right?” she started, and got a nod in confirmation from Jan. “So then it was just like me and Pri left. And, like, sure, that’s a normal Friday night, no big deal, it should have been fine, you know. It’s been that way for years.”

Lemon shifted her weight slightly, and focused her gaze on a dirty spot on her floor. She should really vacuum more often.

“But?” Jan prompted, not seeing where this was going. It was fair enough, Lemon supposed, all things considered.

“Uhm I, uh. You know how I get really wasted after tequila, yeah?” She felt embarrassment creep up on her, tinting her skin pink. “Well, we did a bunch of tequila shots because there was this one girl who had just been staring at her all night, you know _staring_ staring. And she bought Priyanka shots as a way to make her move, I guess. And I don’t know if Pri didn’t notice that the girl was flirting or what, because she didn’t really do anything to encourage it or flirt back, you know? And usually she’s good at picking up on all that, and we all know she loves to flirt. But she just... didn’t. And she shared the shots with me, even though she knows what tequila does to me, but the girl just… she stayed. And she kept touching her arm, and batting her fucking eyelashes and laughing at everything Pri said, and, like, _I_ know she’s funny and stunning and amazing, but it was just... You know.” Lemon let out a sigh, wringing her hands together. “Uh, yeah. And I didn’t really know how to cope, so I just kept drinking and I got more and more jealous the drunker I got. And that girl was about to kiss her, like it was so obvious. So I just... Fuck. I kissed her instead.”

Jan tensed slightly besides her and it made Lemon truly want to bawl her eyes out.

“I fucked up, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Hey, no. Gorg you didn’t fuck up, you hear me? You didn’t fuck up.” Jan grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly. Lemon nodded even though she didn’t believe Jan. “What did Pri say?”

“Um. I’m not really sure. I think I’ve blacked it out mostly.” Lemon let out a humorless laugh and saw Priyanka’s wide eyes flash across her mind again. “But I’m pretty sure I apologized a lot and then ran off to puke my guts out.”

“Oh,” Jan muttered. “That’s not so bad. Was she upset, do you think? Angry?”

“Dunno. No. I… No, I don’t think so.”

“That’s good then. I mean Pri wears her feelings on her sleeve, so you’d have known if she was upset with you, even if you were blasted out of your mind.”

Lemon thought about it. As far as she could remember, everything had seemed normal on the way home. They’d still sat closely together in the back of the bus, trying to get warm from waiting too long for the bus with an airpod in each of their ears, hands clasped together. And Priyanka had been the first one to write I love you when they texted goodnight, even if that’s how they’d usually end their drunken conversations, so she couldn’t have been too freaked out. 

She probably didn’t hate her, at least. Chances were she’d just thought it was a fun, drunk kiss between friends and that was alright. Lemon could live with that, because it meant keeping Priyanka.

“I suppose so yeah,” Lemon mumbled, which prompted Jan to send her a reassuring smile. “It’s just-”

“No,” Jan interrupted. “Listen to me. You and Pri… you fit. Like, I’ve known you for years and years, and I’ve never seen you so… so comfortable as when you’re with her. It’s just that with the two of you, something’s different. Like you become happier when you’re together, both of you. She’s not going to throw that away because of one drunk kiss right? This is _Pri_ we’re talking about. So you’re going to be okay, the two of you, do you hear me? You’re going to be just fine.”

Lemon nodded. Jan was right. Priyanka was her person, had been since Lemon laid eyes on her their first week of college and decided they were going to be friends, and this wasn’t going to change that. Lemon wouldn’t let it.

“Thank you,” she told Jan sincerely, her voice a bit rough around the edges.

“Anytime doll.”

They stayed on the floor a bit longer, Jan telling her about Jackie's exquisite pancakes and recounting their heated discussion on whether or not one should put butter on pancakes, before the two of them dragged themselves into their living room to watch a rerun of Dance Moms and eat peanut m&ms.

“We’ll go out again tonight,” Jan decided as Abby was screaming at the kids on the screen about their feet and Lemon was eating the last of the yellow m&ms. It wasn’t really a question so Lemon just agreed. She’d quite like to get hammered, so it wasn’t like Jan actually would have needed to convince her anyway.

And she wanted to see Priyanka again to make sure they actually were fine.

**The dwolls** **💞**

 **Janice**

hi babes

we’re going out again tonight and you’re all coming

💞💞💞

**Miss Cox if you’re naughty**

We are?

**Janice**

we are yes

🙂

**Miss Cox if you’re naughty**

No need to be aggressive love, I’ll come

**Janice**

😇

**Miss Cox if you’re naughty**

🙄

**Kiki**

what time?

i need to know when i should head home

**Sprinky**

you’re still not home? it’s almost 4:30 keeks

that must be some sort of record for you

also that sounds fun

**Kiki**

no i’m not home yet fuck off pri

she’s really hot okay

**Sprinky**

if you say so

ugh i swear i have the worst hangover anyone’s ever had in the history of the world after last night

**Miss Cox if you’re naughty**

Is it worse than Lem’s 22nd birthday?

**Sprinky**

okay no not that bad

but a real close second

**Lemondra**

nothing is worse than my 22nd borth dogs

*birthday 

fuck

**Sprinky**

omg you’re alive lem!!!!

**Lemondra**

barely. fucking tequila

never again

**Janice**

you say that every time

**Lemondra**

yes but this time i’m serious

**Janice**

sure babe

**Lemondra**

i am

fuck u janice

**Sprinky**

no lem!!! don’t joke about that

you’re my tequila buddy

body if you will

because body tequila right?

**Janice**

we got it babe

**Lemondra**

lol

okay fine

i won’t give entirely up on tequila yet

**Sprinky**

that’s my girl!!

 **Kiki**

okay that’s all good but do i have time to fuck her again or do i need to go home and shower

????

**Janice**

you can fuck her again

we’re thinking 9:30

**Kiki**

nice

bye

**Lemondra**

pop of u whore

💞💞💞

Lemon had taken her time to dress up. She usually did, because Priyanka was always there, but she spent an embarrassing amount of time on it that day. She reasoned she needed the confidence boost more than usual, even if she had somewhat managed to convince herself that maybe it hadn’t been such a disaster last night after all. 

It wasn’t that she lacked confidence when she didn’t dress up, she had a lot of love for herself in whatever state she was in, but she felt more like herself when she looked on the outside how she felt on the inside. It made her feel like she could conquer anything, and that was the energy she needed tonight.

Her and Jan were waiting outside of the club, Jan leaning against the brickwall with her arms wrapped around herself to try and keep warm in her short, spaghetti-strapped lilac dress, one foot tapping out an impatient rhythm. Lemon was prancing back and forth in her pink thigh high boots, hot even though she should have been as cold as Jan was in the strappy yellow dress that barely covered her ass she’d decided on after half an hour of contemplation.

Multiple people eyed them up and down when they walked by the two of them, and Lemon couldn’t blame them. They looked hot. She waved at a group of girls around their age with just the tips of her fingers and sent them a flirtatious smile and at least three of them blushed. She wasn’t interested in any of them, obviously, but it was still nice to know she was desired. 

Lemon became aware of Priyanka’s presence the moment she arrived, because she yelled “My name’s Priyanka! What’s my name?” very loudly in their general direction and waved both arms high in the air, as if they would have missed her otherwise.

Lemon never missed Priyanka, no matter the size of the crowd.

“Stupid,” Lemon called back as an answer to her question, but with a fond smile playing across her lips. Priyanka schooled her features into a scorn, but it only lasted for a moment before her brighter than the sun smile broke out and lit up the night accompanied by a laugh.

“I hate you so much.”

“Sure doll.” 

Lemon reached out for Priyanka as she came closer, and couldn’t help but be relieved that everything felt the same as it usually did when they stumbled into each other for a tight embrace. Jan mouthed _see_ to Lemon, so Lemon flipped her off behind Priyanka’s back.

Jackie arrived not long after and took one look at Lemon and Jan and their small dresses and immediately started scolding them for not wearing more clothes, or at least a damn coat, when it was just the middle of April and the weather forecast had said it would rain later. She then proceeded to shrug off her own coat to wrap Jan up in it with a furrow between her brows. Jan just beamed up at her.

Kiara came click-clacking down the street apologizing profusely for being late moments later, and Jackie shook her head at her attire that covered even less skin than what Lemon was wearing, and let out a defeated sigh, but didn’t say anything.

The five of them queued and passed around the vodka bottle Kiara had brought, making faces when the burning liquor hit their tongues and cracked each other up in between sips. The liquor hit Lemon first, which wasn’t surprising. She was a lightweight, always had been, even when she had tried to convince everyone in college that she most definitely wasn’t.

The first few hours passed in a blur of colorful drinks and dancing and relief. Nothing felt off between her and Priyanka. They would still smile brightly at each other, and Priyanka would drag Lemon up to the bar to do shots with her even though Lemon probably should have stopped drinking three shots ago. None of that mattered though, because they were alright.

At around midnight Priyanka dragged Lemon with her outside to make friends with the smokers in hopes of them eventually asking if she wanted a cigarette. 

Priyanka was currently holding onto Lemon’s wrist, more tightly than necessary, as if she was afraid Lemon would run off if she loosened her grip, surveying the crowd for who she thought would be most fitting for her drunken mission.

“Honestly Pri, why don’t you just buy your own pack?” 

“That’s a stupid question. If I bought my own, I’d _actually_ be addicted to nicotine.”

“Which you aren’t.”

“Nope,” Priyanka claimed, popping the p and smiling brightly.

“But you still smoke half of some stranger’s pack every time we go out.”

“Well I- Uh, I...”

“ _And_ you smoke with Boa whenever you’ve had a stressful day,” Lemon interrupted. “Which is _every fucking day_ at this point, basically.”

“I mean… I... I, you know. I-”

“You what?” Lemon cocked an eyebrow, which made Priyanka stick her tongue out and tug on her arm, clearly knowing she had lost the argument. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Priyanka shoved against her with her shoulder with enough force that Lemon would have toppled over had she taken just one more vodka shot. 

“You’re dumb!” She declared in an effort to win back her dignity.

“And you’re a leech,” Lemon countered.

Priyanka gasped. “Fuck you Lemondra! In my defense, this is free. I’d be stupid to pay for it when I don’t have to,” she said matter of factly. Lemon supposed she actually had a point, for once. She wasn’t planning on letting Priyanka know this though.

She huffed. “They only give them to you in hopes of you leaving them alone Pri, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Oh my God, you’re such a bitch! I’ll bet you that someone will offer me one in ten minutes tops without me asking because I’m fucking charming.”

“In your dreams, maybe,” Lemon said, even though she didn’t even doubt for even one second that Priyanka would be able to do just that. She’d done it for years, after all.

“So you’re taking the bet?”

“Of course I am baby.”

Priyanka smiled one of her contagious million watt smiles that Lemon couldn’t help but return when she was sober, and could only stare lovingly at with a matching one on her own face when she was drunk. 

“If you lose, you have to do tequila shots with me. And you’re paying.”

“Fine, but if _you_ lose you’re paying for a taxi home.”

Priyanka narrowed her eyes. Lemon cocked an eyebrow.

“Deal,” Priyanka eventually muttered.

“Deal.”

Priyanka inspected the crowd once more and after what Lemon assumed was a lot of silent deliberation pointed not so subtly to a small group of girls who stood huddled together, two of the three girls with a smoke in between their lips, the last one sipping on a pink drink. Lemon gave a curt nod and followed along behind Priyanka as she dragged the two of them closer to the girls, her heart fluttering at the feeling of Priyanka’s thumb burning on her pulseline. 

“Hi girls!” Priyanka called out in greeting, and waved at them with her free hand. “You all look _incredible_ , wow. Would you mind if we join you?” She gestured between herself and Lemon, who also waved at the group before her.

Lemon couldn’t see Priyanka’s face, but she could see how two of the three girls looked Priyanka up and down and she felt her breath hitch. She couldn’t help but shake Priyanka’s hand free from around her wrist and then lace their fingers together, brushing her thumb across Priyanka’s knuckles in slow circles.

“Not at all,” one of them, a girl with a blonde, curled pixie cut and her arms covered in tattoos, said, as she stepped to the side to make room for them. She was already the one Lemon liked the most solely based on the fact that she hadn’t checked Priyanka out and wasn’t her type, either.

It was petty, she knew. 

Priyanka stepped into the circle and tugged Lemon with her, who leaned into her, resting her head against her shoulder, when she saw how the woman in a golden catsuit still hadn’t looked away from Priyanka. The woman looked back and forth between the two of them with narrowed eyes that eventually landed on Lemon, who smiled sickeningly sweet at her.

Priyanka introduced herself in her usual enthusiastic way, and the three other girls introduced themselves as Scarlett, Kyne and Juice. Conversation started flowing and she begrudgingly really liked all three of them, even though she’d tried her best to dislike Kyne after the way she’d kept looking at Priyanka when they’d first approached them. 

Priyanka got offered a smoke by Scarlett not even five minutes into their conversation and looked triumphantly at Lemon, then leaned in closer to her, tucking her hair behind her ear, and whispered “I win,” in a husky voice that sent vibrations through her entire body. Lemon, in a fit of gay panic, turned her head towards Priyanka and felt her heart skip a beat when their faces were only centimeters apart, and for some reason decided that taking a deep breath and blowing it out directly into Priyanka’s beautiful face with as much force as she could was the right move.

Somehow it made Priyanka double over with laughter, calling her various swears in between breathless laughter. Lemon laughed too, though mostly out of relief and contagiousness.

They joined into the other girls’ conversation again once they’d both caught their breaths and managed to stop giggling. Priyanka and Juice quickly found out they both adored the Spice Girls and got into a heated argument about who was the superior one (Priyanka claimed it was Scary Spice, Juice argued anyone with common sense would say Baby Spice). Most of Lemon’s knowledge of the Spice Girls stemmed from Pri’s retellings of their glory days, so she didn’t have much of importance to contribute to their discussion. Instead she fell into easy conversation with Scarlett and Kyne about how much better cocktails were than beers, then the difficulties of growing up as queer and female, and of not understanding just excactly why they’d always felt weird and uncomfortable playing spin the bottle and truth or dare at middle grade sleepovers, then retelling their most embarrising stories from said games, trying to outdo each other and cracking each other up with overdramatised recountings. 

After having been unable to feel her arms or legs for longer than was healthy due to the cold, Lemon suggested they went back inside to do shots. She could do with more alcohol in her system and she owed Priyanka tequila shots from having lost their bet anyway. All of them responded with enthusiasm, so Priyanka and Scarlett frantically inhaled the rest of their cigarettes before eventually throwing them on the ground and stepping them flat with their heels. Lemon and Priyanka, still linked together by their hands, made their way back inside with the three other girls in tow, weaving around people grinding against each other and trying to avoid the stickiest parts of the floor, which was close to impossible at this point of the night.

As they neared the bar Lemon spotted Kiara’s long, blonde hair and let out a scream that was barely audible over the music. Kiara must have heard it anyway because she turned around and screamed too when she spotted Lemon and Priyanka, stumbling towards them with an almost empty cocktail in hand. Shouts of _Where were you?, No where were you?_ and _I love you bitches!, No I love you_ and _I’m so drunk_ were exchanged along with spirited embraces and shoulder shakes and the rest of Kiara’s drink spilled on the floor.

It was all a bit much considering it had maybe been an hour since they last saw each other, but being that long away from your friend in a club was like going a month without seeing them in the real world.

They introduced Kiara to the other girls and continued their quest for shots, with Kiara now leading the way towards the bar, excusing herself whenever she stumbled into someone. 

Lemon paid for the first round even though she definitely couldn’t afford to, tequila shots were fucking expensive, and despite knowing she’d regret it in the morning, she threw them back as if she was paid to do so. 

She bought another round, maybe, she wasn’t actually sure at that point, but she did take more shots, the taste of them becoming less and less vile the more of them she threw back. 

It was fair to say that she got absolutely shitfaced, mostly losing grip of what was and what wasn’t appropriate to do, and considered just kissing Priyanka again. It hadn’t been awkward between them since she’d kissed her last night, so she probably wouldn’t mind if she did it again. Right? Just as she was about to say fuck it and do it, Jan and Jackie manifested beside her as a bad omen, and just one look from Jan made Lemon throw that plan right out the window. She settled for grinding against Priyanka for the better part of an hour on the dancefloor and screaming _I love you Sprinky_ in her face at every opportunity she got instead. 

She eventually ventured to the bathroom with Kyne after realizing that if she didn’t find a bathroom in the next three minutes she would absolutely squat down and pee on the floor to make sure her bladder didn’t explode. It seemed very likely it would, she thought, as she banged her fist against a locked bathroom door.

A girl stumbled out a half eternity later, and Lemon was barely inside the cubicle before she’d pulled her dress up and her panties down. 

“Soooo,” Kyne slurred, locking the door behind them as Lemon was falling onto the toilet with relief. “Are you and Priyanka a thing?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

Lemon rolled her eyes. Not because Kyne was suggesting they were, but because they weren’t. “No. We’re… no.” 

“Really?” Kyne asked, sliding down against the door even though it was probably very filthy and the floor an outright bacteria bomb. “Huh. You just seem so…” She made a hand gesture and all Lemon could do was nod. She thought so, too.

“Yeah I know right?”

“Mmm. But you’ve fucked?”

Lemon snorted. “Girl I fucking wish.”

Kyne raised her brows. “Not even once?”

“Sadly not, no.”

“But you’re into each other?” Kyne asked, and propped her elbow up on her knee to rest her head in the palm of her hand.

“You sure are a nosy bitch. You trying to get into her pants?” Lemon looked down at Kyne and felt jealousy churn in her stomach, still not having completely forgotten about how she’d looked at Priyanka when they first met. 

Kyne lifted one hand up in surrender with an amused smile playing around her lips. “No, just curious.”

Lemon regarded her. It seemed to be true enough, so she tried to school her features into something softer. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, I kind of forget social boundaries when I’m wasted.” 

“Me too.”

They looked at each other, and broke out laughing in the same instant. Lemon wasn’t really sure why it was so funny, but Kyne seemed to find whatever it was as hysterical as she did, so she didn’t worry much about it.

“Anyways,” Lemon said once they’d stopped laughing, “I don’t think she’s into me, not like that.”

“But you like her?”

I think _‘like her_ ’ is a bit of an understatement at this point, to be real fucking honest.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Lemon shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. It was. “But, you know, she’s just so pretty and kind and fun and, uhm. Perfect, basically, that I really can’t help it. And trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried for like… four years or something.” 

Kyne was quiet for a few moments. Lemon didn’t really blame her. It was a lot to take in, but she’d been the one to ask for it. 

“That’s so annoying,” she finally said. “Feelings fucking suck.” 

They looked at each other and broke out laughing again. Lemon’s laughter turned into hysteria, which made tears stream down her face and at one point, she wasn’t really sure exactly when, she was just crying. Kyne reached out an arm from her spot on the floor to awkwardly pat her knee.

“Sorry,” Lemon sniffed, not feeling very sorry at all. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried with a stranger over her unrequited crush on Priyanka, so there really wasn’t any point in being embarrassed about it at this point.

“‘S fine,” Kyne said with a sympathetic smile. “I’ve been where you are plenty of times. Only usually I’ll do it in a stranger’s bed after we’ve fucked, so really, you’re doing great.”

Lemon let out a snotty snort. “Thanks.”

She cried and vented some more, and told strangers to fuck off when they asked them to hurry the fuck up. Kyne kept patting her on the knee and helped dab away the streaks of mascara down her cheeks and freshen her lip gloss once Lemon was all cried out and felt good about life again. 

They ventured back to the bar and ordered six jägerbombs they split between them, then made their way to the dancefloor with linked arms, neither of them able to walk in a straight line and bumping into equally drunk people every few steps.

Priyanka shrieked when she spotted her and tried to run to her through the crowd, which was impossible and almost made her fall over her own legs twice. Lemon laughed and called her a stupid bitch, but felt her heart pound away in her chest in direct contradiction to her statement.

“Shut up, you love me,” Priyanka laughed as she pulled Lemon into a fierce embrace that did nothing to calm her beating heart.

“Sadly.”

“Bitch.”

Jan and Jackie had left while Lemon had been crying in the bathroom stall with Kyne (where they had apparently been for almost an hour) and Kiara was dancing closer to Kyne, batting her eyelashes and subtly biting her lip and somehow managing to look good while doing it. Kyne was grinning from ear to ear, so Lemon had no doubts that they would end up in one of their beds some time in the next few hours. She just hoped Kiara wouldn’t break Kyne’s heart too much. She liked her. And she had been willing to hear her blabber on about her feelings for Priyanka for an almost embarrassing amount of time.

When they started making out, Priyanka dragged her outside again, Scarlett following behind them, Juice somewhere unknown in the club. Scarlett told them not to worry, she did this every time they went out and always returned drunker than before and with a legion of women fighting for her attention. Lemon could see why. She would probably have been one of those women back when she was still in denial about her feelings for Priyanka, trying to fuck them away with strangers who were pretty or hot or both, but who never made her truly laugh and never left her completely satisfied, even if they made her clutch her bedsheets and moan loudly enough for her neighbor two doors down to hear her.

Scarlett and Priyanka passed Scarlett’s last cigarette back and forth between them, and Lemon would have been jealous if Scarlett hadn’t just revealed she had a partner she was very much in love with. Said partner called when they were halfway through the smoke and not even thirty seconds into the call they started arguing. Scarlett inhaled the rest of the smoke in between the bickering and muttered something to Lemon and Priyanka about needing to find more cigarettes. She staggered off to the left, stopped briefly to shout into her phone, then ventured on with a goodbye wave in their direction. The moment she was out of earshot Lemon and Priyanka turned towards each other and burst out laughing.

“I’m not sure a relationship is for me if that’s what true love is all about,” Priyanka snorted.

“What, you don’t want to shout at your girlfriend over the phone in front of a nightclub at four a.m.? I thought that was the kind of romance everyone pined for.” Lemon scoffed and shook her head as if this was totally baffling to her, which made Priyanka cackle again and grab both her shoulders to shake her back and forth.

“Oh my God! You’re so, so, _so_ stupid.”

“Wow, so just because a girl wants to have drunk, public arguments, she’s suddenly stupid? That grand, Pri.” 

Priyanka shook her some more and Lemon finally cracked, letting a beaming smile stretch over her lips.

“Shut up Lem! Shut the fuck up! Please!” 

Lemon was about to act on the six jägerbombs she and Kyne had just thrown back, had even leaned closer to the woman in front of her with the words _make me_ formed on her lips, when a drunk girl stumbled into her and made her topple forcefully into Priyanka and made the words die on her tongue instead. 

“Fuck!” Priyanka cried out as she frantically tried to grab onto the man in a floral shirt next to them with one hand and secured the other around Lemon’s waist in an attempt to keep them from colliding with the asphalt. She wasn’t successful, so Lemon just shrieked. Priyanka landed on her ass, Lemon on her knees halfway on top of the other woman. None of it was graceful, and Lemon ripped her nylons and scraped one of her knees. 

They got back on their feet with the help of the drunk girl who’d made them fall over in the first place, who was now crying because she felt bad. They reassured her they were fine, it was all fine, really, and helped her order an Uber once she’d stopped crying.

Priyanka didn’t notice her scraped knee until after the girl was in the backseat of a silver Sedan and gasped dramatically once she did. 

“Your knee!” She pointed at it and crouched down to inspect it further. Her fingers brushed carefully over Lemon’s skin, gingerly touching around the bleeding part. “You need to get this fixed.”

“It’s just a scratch, I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t even hurt.”

“Lemon.”

“Priyanka.”

They stared at each other, Priyanka’s fingers still lingering on her leg and Lemon let out a sigh. “Fine.” 

A triumphant smile spread across Priyanka’s face. Her thumb stroked across the edge of her scrape one last time before she retracted her hand to get back up and left Lemon craving her touch.

Priyanka somehow managed to persuade the coat check attendants to let them into the overpriced wardrobe that was used to hold the more sensible guests’ outerwear. Lemon stepped out of her boots and pulled off her nylons, then hopped up on the counter where she turned on the flashlight on her phone to light up her bleeding knee. Priyanka got handed a first aid kit by a girl with bright pink hair and quietly got to work with careful and measured movements that impressed Lemon quite a bit. Priyanka was never quiet, she was always talking or in movement, so the stillness of her as she wiped Lemon’s knee clean of blood made the moment feel important. It felt like something Lemon should commit to memory and keep safely tucked away and take out to look at on rainy days. 

“There,” Priyanka said, her voice soft, as she had stuck a band-aid on Lemon’s knee.

“Thank you,” Lemon said, sounding too sincere.

Priyanka looked up at her through her lashes and _fuck_ she was so beautiful. Priyanka just hummed quietly in response and kept looking at her like that, and if Lemon had been just a tiny bit braver, or a tiny bit drunker, she would have kissed her again.

But she hadn’t drunk enough to do so even though she’d probably drunk too much, so she just sent her a smile and jumped down from the counter before the pull of Priyanka became too much. 

They left the club after thanking the staff profusely for letting them take care of Lemon’s injury away from the crowd and Lemon reached out for Priyanka’s hand because it was cold and she was always warm. She grabbed it before it was even halfway towards her and wove their fingers together, just like she always did, and Lemon’s breaths became shallow.

They chatted about everything and nothing, but mostly about really craving fries, as they walked towards the bus, Lemon with goosebumps up and down her arms and now regretting not bringing a coat. Lemon pouted and Priyanka frowned when they found out they had to wait 22 minutes for the bus. It wasn’t so bad when they huddled together after waiting for three whole minutes and she could feel the other girl’s heartbeat. The night felt serene and sacred right up until it started raining after seven minutes, just like Jackie had said it would, and then Lemon _really_ regretted not bringing a coat.

“I hate rain,” Lemon muttered and shuffled closer to Priyanka, even though she only hated the rain at times like this, when she was cold and drunk and wanted to sleep.

“I know,” Priyanka said and wrapped her arms around her and made Lemon hate the rain slightly less.

They stood like that, with Lemon’s head resting on Priyanka’s chest, both of them shivering and talking softly until the bus came. They hurried into the warmth of it, their hair leaving a trail of droplets behind them, the two of them still connected by their hands. They found their way to the back of the bus, smiled at the few other people they passed on their way there.

Priyanka slid in first and handed Lemon one of the airpods she had had safely tucked away in her bra. They bickered a bit about the music, even though both of them were content listening to whatever the other favored, then scrolled through Priyanka’s social media and laughed too loudly whenever they found something even slightly funny.

The closer they got to Lemon’s stop the quieter Priyanka became. She kept looking at Lemon with an intense look in her eyes, then started a sentence but changed what she was saying a few words in. Lemon wrote it off to the countless shots and half pack of cigarettes she had consumed throughout the night. She had to, or she might lose her mind if she overanalyzed its importance.

“Hey Lem,” Priyanka called out as the bus was pulling into the stop where Lemon had to get off.

“Yeah?” Lemon asked, and stopped in her tracks, looking back at Priyanka who sat right in the center at the back of the bus with the flickering street lights behind her lighting her up.

“I… Uh.” She sniffed. “Text me when you’re home.”

“Always. You too.”

“Yeah.”

The bus came to a hold, so Lemon had to start moving again if she didn’t want to add an extra mile to her walk home. 

“Love you,” she called over her shoulder, as she stepped into the rain.

“Love you too,” sounded, and then the doors closed and the bus drove away into the night and left Lemon standing alone and lonely in the downpour.

She had only just changed into her favorite sleeping t-shirt (oversized and baby pink with a print of a lemon wearing sunglasses) when a knocking on the front door disrupted the quiet of her and Jan’s apartment. 

She shuffled towards it, curious and slightly alarmed. It was past five in the morning after all. She peeked through spyhole and felt her heart rate quicken when she saw Priyanka on the other side. She quickly unlocked the door and looked the other woman up and down with a puzzled wrinkle between her brows.

“Pri?” She asked, her voice bouncing off the walls in the hallway, sounding louder than it probably was.

Priyanka looked at her with wide eyes, as if she was only just realizing where she was. She blinked a few times, then said, “Sorry. I’ll just go.”

“What? No, don’t. Stay.” 

Lemon reached out, and wrapped her fingers around her arm when Priyanka started backing away. She stopped, looked down at Lemon’s pale hand against her dampened skin, then back up at Lemon.

“It’s stupid,” she said, but she didn’t give any more indications of leaving.

“That’s nothing new,” Lemon said, her voice much gentler than usual, not really matching the viciousness of her words. Priyanka cracked a smile, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared and that’s when Lemon realized she was nervous. Priyanka was never nervous.

She hummed, and focused on a spot past Lemon’s shoulder. Lemon felt the urge to turn to see what she was looking at, even if she logically knew it couldn’t be anything more than their baby pink coat rack or the picture of the five of them at graduation with their arms slung around each other that hung slightly askew above it.

She squeezed her arm, both in hopes of bringing her attention back to herself, and in hopes of getting her to say something. Anything.

Priyanka let out a long breath, but still didn’t meet Lemon’s eyes. It felt like the quiet lasted forever. 

“It’s just,” she started, but nothing more came. Priyanka’s nervous behavior was rubbing off on Lemon, and she could feel how her own heart was suddenly hammering away in her chest, and how her hands were turning clammy, and how her chest felt hollow.

“Uhm.” She visibly swallowed, then finally met Lemon’s eyes. “Why’d you kiss me? Yesterday, I mean,” she blurted, and it took Lemon a few moments to understand what she’d said.

“I- What?” Lemon blinked, taken aback. Of all the things she’d thought Priyanka might have come here to say, this wasn’t anywhere close.

Priyanka wrung her hands together, looked away from Lemon, then back at her again. “I just… I need to know why.”

Lemon cleared her throat. Then cleared it again. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t ruin their friendship. _I’ve been in love with you for four years_ wasn’t really a sane option at five in the morning. 

“See, I told you it was stupid,” Priyanka said when Lemon had been quiet for too long.

“No, it’s- I- It’s not that-”

“It’s okay if it didn’t mean anything to you.”

“It’s just…” Lemon trailed off. She blinked at Priyanka.

It’s okay if it didn’t mean anything to you. 

It’s okay if it didn’t mean anything to you. 

It’s okay if it didn’t mean anything _to you_.

What?

“What?”

“I just… Um, I don’t have any expectation of it meaning anything to you. The kiss, that is.” Priyanka stared down at her feet. Lemon blinked some more, and suddenly it _made_ _sense,_ she thought, she hoped, oh god she hoped it made sense, and if her heart had been hammering before it was trying to beat the world record of most beats per minute now.

She felt her breath hitch in her throat, or her lungs, maybe, but she still managed to ask, “What if it did?”

Priyanka froze completely for a few seconds, the only movement of her in the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Then her gaze found Lemon’s and the two of them stared at each other in a quiet that was different from their other silences so far. It was loaded and heavy, too, but it was also hopeful and colorful and bright. 

“Did it?” Priyanka finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lemon found that her voice wasn’t working right, so she nodded instead and felt her stomach riot with anticipation.

She didn’t much like being vulnerable, but her head was swimming with maybes and Priyanka was already over the walls around her heart, so it wasn’t like it would make much of a difference anyway. 

“Me too.”

Those two words resonated around inside her head, and suddenly it was easier and harder to breathe all at once. It felt unreal, dreamlike, and Lemon would almost have been convinced that it was exactly that if it hadn’t been for Priyanka’s flushed cheeks or her pulse palpitating beneath Lemon’s fingers, because by God were those the realest things she could imagine.

“This is probably stupid,” Priyanka croaked, when they had looked at each other with their hearts extended towards the other for a long moment.

“I know.”

“Do you care?”

“No.” Lemon had never cared about anything less. “Do you?”

“Couldn’t care less.”

Lemon let out a heavy breath and tugged on Priyanka’s arm, to pull her closer to her, because the distance seemed much too big and neither of them cared about being sensible anymore. “Can I-”

“Yes,” Priyanka said and then Lemon was on her tiptoes pressing her lips against Priyanka’s. Her heart exploded over and over with every thump against her ribcage, and her vision blurred, and her fingers were buzzing, and she felt like she was more alive than she ever had been before. 

Priyanka ran her fingers through Lemon’s hair as Lemon cupped her face with the palm of her hand, her thumb caressing the other woman’s soft features. 

She could have died happy in that moment, she thought.

They pulled apart, both of them breathing heavily, as if they had a lifetime of untaken breaths to make up for, and rested their foreheads against each other, their eyes closed. 

“Wow,” Lemon breathed.

“Mmm,” Priyanka hummed in agreement.

Lemon opened her eyes and pulled her head a bit away from Priyanka’s, her hand still cupping her cheek. Priyanka’s eyes met her own and her heart skipped a beat when a soft smile spread across the other woman’s face. She smiled back, she couldn’t really do anything but that, and leaned in for another kiss because she finally could.

She pulled Priyanka inside, interlocked their fingers and didn’t let go even as Priyanka bent over to open the straps of her heels. She made them tea, because it was five in the morning and too late for coffee, but neither of them were tired anymore. They drank it in Lemon’s bed, Priyanka now clad in one of her night shirts, the two of them sitting as closely together as physically possible.

They talked, and kissed, and argued, and kissed some more, and Lemon made fun of Priyanka, so Priyanka called her a bitch, then pressed her lips against Lemon’s before she could respond.

If Lemon had to describe serenity, she thought this was probably it.

They fell asleep a little after seven with their limbs tangled together and Priyanka’s head resting on Lemon’s chest and the morning sun peeking through her blinds. 

They woke up too late and stayed in the bed for too long, but neither of them cared. They ordered pizza for breakfast, even though it couldn’t really be called breakfast at that time of the day, and got crumbs all over Lemon’s bed linen when they got into a play fight and accidentally flipped the pizza box upside down. The play fight ended with a lot of kissing that turned into more than just kissing. Jan barged into her room the minute she came home from Jackie’s and let out a scream when she found Priyanka mostly naked on top of Lemon, but called through the walls that she was very happy for them before putting on Chromantica at top volume. Lemon and Priyanka dissolved into fits of giggles, and then Priyanka made sure to take full advantage of the volume of the music playing in the next room.

When Priyanka had to leave the two of them spent half an hour in the doorway making out and only stopped because Mrs. Morris across the hall came home and sent them disdainful looks and coughed pointedly one too many times as she was fiddling with her keys.

“See, I told you, you were going to be fine,” Jan said with a smirk when Lemon fell onto the couch next to her.

Lemon rolled her eyes, but she still had a beaming smile stretched across her face, so it wasn’t very effective. 

“Fuck off Jan.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! I'm not really sure if I actually like it or not, but I've been staring at it so much now I've concluded that this is as good as it's going to get. If you want to, come say hi on tumblr! You can find me here: [@moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) <3


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